Part 5 Uruguay: PSN Puts World Cup Commercials on the Map for Russia 2018
World Cup Fever is coming to a boiling point, and brands have been clamouring to speak to the huge audiences tuning in to the football action in Russia. World Cup commercials have been being commissioned in countries around the globe, but in a worldwide tournament, fraught with rivalries and fronted by some of the hardest to reach talent on the globe, how do you know where to shoot?
PSN calls on its production partners from around the world to share their insights on what countries are getting through the group stages at pitch. In the third in a series of World Cup features they speak to Andrés Mailhos, Service EP at PSN Uruguay, the man on the ground for a recently released spot by the Uruguyan government, aiming to show Uruguay’s journey and patriotic spirit.
Q> This commercial has a very much national focus, I assume Uruguay was a natural choice for the shoot?
Andrés Mailhos> Yes, we shot all of the live action in Montevideo and surrounding areas, but our location was also key in terms of sourcing the old stock footage of the Olympics and the first FIFA World Cup in 1930 - hosted in Uruguay. It was really tough to get to the original/master Copies. In many cases, they no longer existed or were damaged. Despite that, we managed to get footage of these events and the 1950 World Cup tournament to use in the spot.
Q> What key factors did you have to consider in the campaign?
AM> The central message of the campaign is very universal. The only potential conflict is the VO, so three versions have been created: Spanish, English and Russian. Our national brand also doesn’t have huge big budgets to play with, so we had to be creative with what we could provide.
Q> You were working with a number of high profile football players and other celebrities. How did this affect the shoot?
AM> Fortunately, the nature of the campaign meant that everyone was keen to get involved and contribute to the project where they could. However, as with most footballers they have incredibly tight schedules and many of the national players work internationally - Suarez plays for Barcelona FC, Cavani plays for Paris Saint Germain, Godin plays for Atletico de Madrid and so on...
When it came to the footballers we also had to be keenly aware of pre-existing personal contracts that players have with international brands such as Nike, Puma or Adidas. We had to study in detail what was and wasn’t possible to avoid potential image rights conflicts.
